Business briefs

NEW YORK - Stocks closed mixed Thursday amid lingering gloom on Wall Street about corporate profits and higher oil prices. The uncertainty ended a two-day rally in the high-tech sector.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 77.60 at 10,765.52, a shift away from the downward momentum of the past few sessions. The Nasdaq composite index fell 68.57 to 3,828.87.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 8-to-5 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.08 billion shares, down from Wednesday's pace.Morris to launch free Colorado dailyAugusta-based Morris Communications Corp. this fall will launch a free daily newspaper in Summit County, Colo., to compete with an existing publication.

Morris, whose Colorado newspaper group includes The Glenwood Post and the Eagle Valley Enterprise, did not announce a start date for the new paper, which will be called The Summit Morning News.

WASHINGTON - The number of Americans filing new applications for state unemployment benefits declined last week but still left claims at a level suggesting that the economy's voracious appetite for workers may be easing a little.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that new claims for jobless benefits fell to a seasonally adjusted 308,000 for the week ending last Saturday, the lowest level since early August.

That was down by 18,000 from the previous week, a bigger drop than many analysts expected.

Olympic officials catch Net pirates

LONDON - So far, the Olympics' first round-the-clock effort to keep live video and sound clips from the Games off commercial Web sites - pre-empting NBC's exclusive coverage deal - has paid off.

The anti-piracy firms hired to police the Internet for unauthorized broadcasts of the Summer Olympics said Thursday that they have caught almost 30 violators since the Sydney Games began last week.

The latest violator, Moscow TV6's Internet arm, yanked its live Web coverage Thursday, said Dave Powell, president of Copyright Control Services, which monitors the Internet on the International Olympic Committee's behalf. TV6 representatives in Moscow, however, denied they ever showed live video of the Olympics.

Honor system ebbs on book site

PORTLAND, Maine - As Stephen King prepares to post the third installment of his online serial novel The Plant, it appears fewer people fear the writer's threat to pull the plug if they don't pay.

Most fans are obeying the honor system and sending Mr. King $1 for each installment downloaded from his Web site. Some still are sending in extra bucks to cover freeloaders.

But the latest numbers showed that less than 70 percent of those downloading The Plant paid for it. Mr. King has set 75 percent as the minimum for him to continue after part three, which will be available on his Web site Monday.